Blue Bird Corporation has celebrated the opening of its Electric Vehicle (EV) Build-up Center in Fort Valley, Georgia to increase the production of electric school buses.
This site extends the company’s main US manufacturing plant by transforming a 40,000-square-foot facility that will help meet the growing demand for electric school buses in North America.
With this milestone, the company aims to expand its maximum electric school bus production capacity from 4 to 20 vehicles a day, with the view of producing 5,000 electric school buses each year.
US and Canadian school districts are currently transitioning their bus fleets to electric vehicles to reduce harmful greenhouse gas emissions, improve student and community health and save on rising fuel costs.
Currently, more than 10 billion USD in federal, state, provincial and local funding has been made available for zero- and low-emission school buses to accelerate this transition.
Phil Horlock, President and CEO of Blue Bird Corporation said:Based on the historic Bipartisan Infrastructure Law alone we anticipate thousands of additional electric school bus orders valued at an estimated $1 billion over five years. Our new EV Build-up Center reflects Blue Bird’s steadfast commitment to school districts across the U.S. and Canada to meet increasing demand and deliver clean, safe, and reliable student transportation when they need it.
Blue Bird’s EV Build-up Center is part of a multi-million dollar investment in upgrading Blue Bird’s Fort Valley manufacturing site.
The new facility will feature a dedicated assembly line for electric school buses that will be manned by trained technicians.
It also includes InCharge Energy ICE-30 chargers and mobile carts to flexibly charge electric school buses prior to customer delivery.
